It's no surprise the reinsurance industry likes CFO Alex Sink's idea of taking Florida's Cat Fund out of the hands of legislators.
   
   Lawmakers responding to citizens fed up with their insurance rates doubled the size of the state fund, taking $16 billion of sales away from the private reinsurance industry. In the end, insurance companies made up for the lost business, by buying more product.

   Sink believes the Florida Cabinet can do a better job of matching state risk to state need, and believes that as private reinsurance rates come down, the Cat Fund can lighten up. And that means less competition to reinsurers.

   "We believe CFO Sink's proposal makes a great deal of sense," says Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America. "The private reinsurance market has both the capacity and the appetite to accept Florida's catastrophe risk and is able to spread that risk around the world, rather than concentrating the risk in Florida as is currently the case. 

   "The private reinsurance market can do that without the huge post-hurricane assessment/taxes inherent in the current law.  We will cooperate with CFO Sink as she moves forward with her excellent proposal."